Texas Boxing Commission Does Not Regularly Test for Most PEDs, Steroids

According to Susan Sanford, Public Information Officer for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Texas’ state boxing commission does not regularly test professional boxers for the use of most performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), including anabolic steroids.

Texas implemented an updated drug testing protocol in the fall of 2011. It has widely been assumed that the process, which includes a random selection of four to six fighters from any given fight card, incorporated testing for performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. However, information provided to TSS confirms the current random testing protocol is almost exclusively geared towards illicit and recreational drug screening.

According to Sanford, the nine-panel urinalysis test only includes the following:

1. Amphetamine Screen

2. Barbiturate

3. Benzodiazepines

4. Cannabinoid

5. Cocaine

6. Opiates (Codeine and Morphine)

7. Phencyclidine

8. Methadone Screen

9. Propoxyphene

Sanford provided documentation indicating Texas could direct combatants of any professional boxing match sanctioned by the state to undergo additional testing requirements, including but not limited to PEDs, but only at the direction of the executive director or his assistant. The rule reads as follows:

(p) The executive director, or his designee, may require of a contestant, neurological or other medical testing.

“Under the rule, the agency can require a contestant to undergo anabolic steroid testing, among other tests,” Sanford told TSS. “Anabolic steroid testing is not regularly performed, but it has been done on occasion.”

It is unclear how many PED tests have occurred since the testing protocol was initiated. An inquiry made to Dickie Cole, Executive Director, has gone unanswered at time of press. Information posted at the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation website indicates random drug tests are provided either before or after a bout as directed by the executive director or his designee:

(p) A person who applies for or holds a license as a contestant shall provide a urine specimen for drug testing either before or after the bout, if directed by the executive director or his designee. The applicant or licensee is responsible for paying the costs of the drug screen.

The state also lists categories of banned substances which it would constitute conclusive evidence of a violation. However, the standard test given at random by the state does not match the eleven categories listed:

(q) A positive test (which has been confirmed by a laboratory authorized by the executive director or his designee) for any of the following substances shall be conclusive evidence of a violation of subsection (o).

(1) Stimulants

(2) Narcotics

(3) Cannabinoids (marijuana)

(4) Anabolic agents (exogenous and endogenous)

(5) Peptide hormones

(6) Masking agents

(7) Diuretics

(8) Glucocorticosteroids

(9) Beta--2 agonists (asthma medications)

(10) Anti-estrogenic agents

(11) Alcohol

“The agency contacts Request-a-Test, and that organization arranges a lab technician for the event,” said Sanford.

TSS obtained additional information on the drug testing protocol through a public information Open Records request. Sanford confirmed, as suggested in the document, that the nine-panel drug test is the one given in accordance with the process described therein, where four to six fighters are chosen per card at random.

Texas has received unfavorable press in the recent past due to its testing protocol. In a day when combative sports competitors continue to get bigger, faster and stronger at ever advancing ages, the suspicion of rampant PED use in the sport continues to grow. Texas’ policy of administering drug tests randomly to a maximum of six randomly selected competitors was already considered subpar by many critics. The fact that the test does not even include screening for almost any form of PED (with the exception of amphetamines) would seem to indicate the state is perhaps ill prepared to help combat the ever looming problem of PED usage in the sport.

In comparison, the New York State Athletic Commission conducts urinalysis tests before or after every fight. In addition, Nevada’s Keith Kizer told TSS his state tests every fighter on every card. Information posted at the Nevada State Athletic Commission website indicates the state also reserves the right to randomly test fighters any other time during the year. While no one would laud either of these commissions for being beyond reproach when it comes to drug testing protocols (neither fully comply with guidelines set forth by the World Anti-Doping Agency), it would seem reasonable to set drug testing every fighter on a fight card as the absolute minimum standard.

In stark contrast to what happens in Texas, the urinalysis tests performed by both New York and Nevada include screens for anabolic steroids and PEDs much more often. Laz Benitez, a Public Relations Officer for New York’s Department of State, advised that while every fighter on every card was tested for “illicit/prohibited substances,” the urinalysis tests ordered by the NYSAC for “all championship fights” included testing for PEDs. She also said the Commission uses “discretion to order additional tests if it is determined to be appropriate.” Meanwhile, Nevada’s top man Kizer confirmed the “primary” function of every urinalysis test done on every fighter in Nevada is to screen for “anabolic agents, diuretics and masking agents.”

It is clear the state of Texas lags behinds its peers in regards to PED testing.

Ditto, Deepwater! Roids and PEDs are not the problem. You can whup a joker on dat jive. The corrupted officials are darn killa bees in da legal mayhem hive.

Mad salutes to Texas. Holla!

stormcentre says:

Read my post on the TSS Donaire piece (if you like). It applies to this as well. Peace boxing lovers.

C.J.Rock says:

Texas isnt the only one not doing tests I assure you. A fighter gets a level playing field in Texas but not Vegas or NYC

Radam G says:

True DAT, C.J Rock! These self-righteous, corrupted states oughta jump off doze roids-and-PEDs trains of deceit, and call a spade a spade. Ninety percent of fighters are on dat syet -- because of the yearning for a Hulk-like built -- so let all the fights be made. Da best roids-and-PEDs pugilist will get their sorry-@sses whup if they don't have talent and/or skills to pay the bills.

An unskilled and untalented fighter has a better chance of winning by getting da whammy put on his sorry @ss by a hypnotist than "takin' dat sh*t, as Pops Joy May calls roids and PEDs.

I'm reminded of my in-my-momma's womb, infant and toddler's times. The RAGE on boxing's front PAGE during that time was about pugilists gettin' their cheat on by having professional hypnotists put da whammy on 'em and turn 'em into whup-arse wrecking and/or killing machines.

But did dat jive REALLY WORK? HECK NO, IMHO! Just a bunch of hyped-up jive and BIG exaggerations.

Okay! Well maybe it worked a bit. But to me, it was just placebo-working sh*t for a weak mind strong enough to believe in automagic nonsense!

Hypnotist (Doctor) Michael Dean put da whammy on then "clubfighter Ken Norton," who GOAT Ali was using for a tune up before gettin' a rematch against the late, great "Smokin" Joe Frazier. The oddmakers gave Norton absolutely no CHANCE. The odds was something like infinite to double fudge you. Hehehe! But nobody knew about Dr. Dean, who had been putting the whammy on sailors, Marines, male tourists, businessmen and dey bytches and hos around San Diego way. "Wives and good girls didn't play that," according to some bad mamajamas of those days.

The doc could make people do all types of jive on stage. So, anyway, the story that was told to me after I was born and about three years old is that Kenny Norton's trainer was at Dr Dean's show one night, and the trainer didn't believe in hypotism. His arse was smack talking how no muthasucka could put the whammy on him. But the doc did it, and had the trainer doing all type of crazy jive. This is what I was told anyway.

So the next day, the trainer went back to Norton's training at the then popular Fifth Street Boxing Gym in downtown San Diego, and told "every d*ck and trick in the gym that [he had] the magic potion to bust up Clay's @ss and break his jaw, so dat he won't be able to sh*t talk no mo' [sic]." What a prophetic omen!

Yall know the rest of the story. Dr Dean put da double fudge whammy on Kenny Norton, and made that scare-of-Ali fighter believe himself to be part black Superman, part Mandingo Warrior, and he broke GOAT Ali's jaw, put the GOAT's wife into serious shock, shut da champ up for a day and a half and became a superstar sensation in boxing, commercials and movies and a millionaire almost over night. Dude got all type of movie deals, whammy-belief advertisting and super-mad love. The GOAT Ali haters really madly embraced the Jaw Breaker of the GOAT fighter.

And as I came into the world and got long in da tooth as a toddler, I heard the legend of Dr. Dean and the deadly use of hypnotism. OMFG! But the thing about it, even as a toddler being carried around the world to boxing gyms and get my pee pee on everybodee and dey momma, I didn't believe that hypnotism or what the boxing dawgs call whammism worked. Because the doc put da whammy on tons of fighters after Norton, and that jive didn't get them anywhere because they just didn't have it. Off the top of my head, some of the pugilists that I can think of -- leading the bunch would be Duane Bobick, Olympican Gold medalist Ronnie Harris and a San Diego club fighter named David Love.

See nowadays roids and PEDs are the "dangerous putting a man in a trance to kill" hypnotism/whammism of the 1970s and early 1980s. I don't know for sure, but I faintly recall Gentleman Gerry Cooney messing around with that hyped-up dumpsyet.

DEEP BOTTOMLINE:

WORD TO THE WISE:

Hyponotism/whammism couldn't HELP sorry arses back in da day. AND Roids and PEDs cannot help sorry arses nowadays. The greatest benefit of dat junk is that it will give a super, low-confidence muthasucka a shocking PLACEBO surge -- nothing more IMHO! Holla!

Radam G says:

Rumors are wildly flying all the way to the P-ISLANDS that Money May is going holla about Fallen Angel Heredia juicing up Juan Manuel Marquez. Wow! Showtime is going straight-up tabloid with Fam May's sensationalism. I ain't hatin.' Holla!

stormcentre says:

Agreed Radam, whilst the juice may help the fitness. It wont turn a bum into a skilled fighter. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of those JMM/Heredia-juicing and Mayweather rumours. And it's not like Pacman can afford to cry foul play whether you buy into what Floyd says, or doesn't say.